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Five poems by Adam Day


Doing Nothing


The sun has gone

underground, but


the authorities

will find it.





To Be Here


Yellow leaf

thinly slow-flies


shallow serpentine

creek beneath


tree canopy

and frog call


of water running

over a gourd’s mouth.





Bring the Wind


Driving spikes

to split boulders


the sparks

fly pink


in the winter

blue light.





Stoplight Rain


Propane tanks

tossed in the yard,


neighbor went inside

dressed and came


out naked, the whole

horse of him


with nowhere

to put his wallet.


What do you need,

love, what kind


of enough

would be enough?





Long Minutes


Shad swim

the forest,


fold into

manta rays


maneuvering paper

birches and


elms; something

like eternity


embedded in

a moment


of time.







Adam Day is the author of Left-Handed Wolf (LSU Press, 2020), and of Model of a City in Civil War (Sarabande Books), and the recipient of a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship for Badger, Apocrypha, and of a PEN America Literary Award. He is the publisher of the cultural magazine, Action, Spectacle.

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